Hunting the huntsman: Reporter spends day with Cirencester Illegal Hunt Watch

Reporter Jack Pitts spent a day with Cirencester Illegal Hunt Watch, finding out why they believe the blood sport is alive and well in the Cotswolds. Some of the names have been changed because of fears of reprisals.

“So you’re absolutely sure they’re hunting foxes?” I asked.

“Oh yes,” Denise said, clearly surprised. “It’s absolutely happening. Without question. That’s why we’re out there every week.”

“And can it be dangerous?” I asked. “I can’t imagine they want you there.”

She laughed. “It can be, yes. I know a woman who had her nose broken and we often get awful language hurled at us, one of them called me a “menopausal slut” recently. They don’t want us there, even if we’re on public land.”

A week later, on a sunny yet cold Wednesday morning, I found myself walking out to Denise‘s car wearing sturdy walking boots and cradling my press camera.

Inside I met two more of Cirencester Illegal Hunt Watch, Mick and Irina, who have been dedicated conservationists for decades.

Mick, wearing camouflage trousers and a thick jacket, has been trumpeting the cause of wildlife conservation since the age of 12 when a flock of teals he was watching was shot by hunters.

Like many of the group, Irina met the others when she was fighting the badger cull, during that time she spent 14 weeks camped in front of a badger set in a bid to keep its occupants safe.

On the way to the hunt Mick explained why they are out there on the front line.

Foxes, he said, do not need hunting to keep their numbers down as they self-regulate.

As we moved out of Cirencester, he said: “They say they are out ‘trail hunting’, just following a scent laid out by men before they got there. But if you see the routes they take and over fences down roads and through brambles you know that can’t be true.

“We’re here to stop them getting the poor foxes, but also to catch them in the act – then we can prosecute them.”

We trundle out of Cirencester, through Tetbury and onto the meeting point, where we find the rest of the team and decant into a 4x4.

The team driver Jennifer brings out a bag full of cameras and radios.

“This is the only protection we’ve got,” Irina explained, brandishing the camera. “Things can get quite aggressive out there but they think twice when we’ve got these going.”

“Or they’re meant to,” said Rebecca, joining us.

Other hunt monitors, as they call themselves now since eschewing the title of ‘saboteurs’, have fared worse – some have had jaws broken or have been targeted for reprisals at their homes.

As we drive off I notice there’s another camera attached to the car. This one, I’m told, is for Jennifer, who is often in the car on her own.

The Beaufort Hunt post their meets on the internet each week; something the monitors say is “arrogance” no one will try and catch them, but what the hunters say is a reasonable thing to do because they are not doing anything illegal.

We weave down country lanes until we are on a hill overlooking the hunt. Around 200m away I can see them mustering, some 60 riders and a pack of eager looking dogs.

Mick has been tracking hunts for so long he knows the hunt calls and can try and turn the dogs to save a fox. If all fails he can put down a scent obscurer called citronella and even has a small handmade whip which he can use to imitate a huntmaster, scaring the dogs away.

“But it’s not just the foxes we’re worried about,” he says. “It’s the horses and the dogs too, and of course all the wildlife they disturb when they’re tearing up the countryside.”

Irina said: “We’re lucky we’ve got Mick, he can tell almost every time where the hunt will be going just by the direction of the wind [which holds the scent] or if animals in a field are disturbed.”

As we wait for the hunt to leave two terriermen on a large quadbike roar towards us. They killed the engine and began filming every inch of the car, including who was inside.

“They do this to intimidate us,” Jennifer explained.

“The terriermen used to be the men who dug the foxes out,” Denise added. “Which makes you wonder why they’re still needed.

“We think they breed the foxes specifically to hunt them because there’s not enough in the natural landscape. We’ve even seen artificial earths they use to make sure they’ve got enough foxes.”

Suddenly the hunt breaks away down a hill and Jennifer guns the engine. In the front Denise is pouring over maps as she works out where we can try and head them off.

The hunt has the run of the land, but all we can do is track them down the roads and try and to head them off on footpaths.

The riders surge up a hill and then move towards a copse of woods.

“Right, Rebecca, Jack, come with me,” Denise says, as she piles out of the car. “Everyone – keep your cameras rolling.”

We charge up a footpath toward the woods where a couple of outriders are waiting. There’s a series of calls and dogs start streaming through the gate and fanning out across the field.

There a sound a few metres away from me. Suddenly a waterfall of horses leaps across the hedge and careers down the hill.

Denise, still with her camera held aloft, said: “We’ve headed them off. They’d flushed a fox out but when they saw us with our camera they knew they’d have to try somewhere else.”

“They hate it when we turn up,” Rebecca said. “We ruin their hunt.”

The first battle, they believe, is won but the war lasts until nightfall and we have to run back to the car to regroup.

As we jump back in the car, Denise is immediately tracing a finger over the maps.

“It looks like they’re heading toward the woods by Horton,” says Denise.

“Oh not there again,” moaned Rebecca. Seeing my look she explained: “That’s where I got pushed over last time, they were quite rough.”

Mick and Irina take off for up the road and we delve onto a footpath in the woods.

As I’m going in a hunt supporter looks at me and asks: “What are you doing here? What’s the point in what you’re doing? Stop trying to ruin the countryside.”

The woods seem quiet, but it’s clear there’s a lot of commotion nearby.

Then, a little nose pokes out of the knee-high ferns and a dog pads toward me, looking unaware that 60 riders will soon be flooding the woods.

The rest of the pack start to follow, looking at me with interest as my camera snaps away.

Without warning, a huntsmen dashes through, blowing his horn wildly, but on seeing us slows down and makes a call to the dogs. He walks right by us, dogs in tow, and looks down as if he wants to say something.

“That little foxy gets to live another day,” Rebecca says.

“Have you ever seen a fox get killed?” I ask.

“No,” admited Denise, who has produced a three part documentary about fox hunting called A Minority Pastime. “But we’ve heard one from a field over and it’s absolutely heart breaking. The sound they make is awful. And we’ve seen poor exhausted ones that have been chased.

The hunt heads off and radios crackle away as we try and track them. It turns out, however, that it is surprisingly easy to lose 60 riders and a pack of dogs.

While the others get back to the car to try and hunt the hunters, Denise gives me a lift home.

There are three major hunts in the Cotswolds, The Beaufort Hunt, Vale of White Horse Hunt and the Cotswold Hunt, and each go out four or five times a week. But the team, some of whom work full-time, can only get out once or twice a week so will never be able to stop every hunt.

And then, even if the cameras roll all day and they witness hunters killing a fox – which Denise says will eventually happen, they have to prove there was ‘intent’ – which is difficult because huntsmen will apparently always say their dogs were out of control.

It’s much quieter in the car than in the woods.

“Is it worth it? Trudging through the forest in the rain?” I ask.

“It’s difficult,” she admits. “It often starts to spill over into normal life. But once you know such dreadful things are going on its difficult to stop.

“It can be quite depressing. But when you know what is happening in the countryside you love so much you start to look at it in a new way.”

• A spokeswoman for Beaufort Hunt strongly denied they targeted foxes, saying: “We trail hunt. These allegations are what you would expect from an animal rights group."

She said: “Trail laying is being done systematically in the areas that we have always hunted to simulate what used to be a normal day's hunting.”

She added that the idea the Hunt released, or even bred, its own foxes, was “absolute rubbish”.

“The vast majority of farmers would prefer to see the ban repealed, which would benefit animal welfare in every direction. We know of many farmers who are offended by the perceived arrogance of the Cirencester Illegal Hunt Watch that feels it has a right to trespass on their land and to try and force their opinions and ideals on them with no knowledge of the rural/farming world.”